The 58 new physicians who received University of Hawaiʻi medical degrees in May 2010 included a record number of Native Hawaiian graduates in a single class.

Among the 12 John A. Burns School of Medicine graduates with Hawaiian ancestry were Kamehameha Schools alumni Jordan Lee, JABSOM class president, and Marcus Iwane, the American Medical Association 2008 Minority Scholar.

Ninety percent of all students attending the medical school are Hawaiʻi residents.

Physicians in the class of 2010 now continue training in specialties they have chosen. Fifteen of them will participate in the Hawaiʻi Residency Program, which places more than 200 MDs annually in partner medical centers for continued training in internal medicine, general surgery, geriatric medicine, family practice, psychiatry (general, geriatric, child and adolescent and addictions), obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, pathology and orthopedic surgery.

John A. Burns School of Medicine officials note that Hawaiʻi is short by 500 practicing physicians, based on population. More than a quarter of the doctors now in practice are already at retirement age.

To help meet the state’s need for doctors, JABSOM will increase its incoming class size to 64 students, beginning with the class enrolling in medical school in July 2010.

The school is also increasing its Imi Hoʻola (those who seek to heal) post-baccalaureate program to 12 students. Each year, successful graduates of the one-year “medical boot camp” at Imi Hoʻola are admitted into the incoming class of medical students. The program helps boost medical school enrollment by students from socially, culturally or economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

In addition to the 58 medical doctors, JABSOM graduated 6 students with PhDs, 2 with doctors of public health, 18 master’s in public health, 7 master’s in biomedical sciences and 20 BS recipients in communication sciences and disorders or medical technology.